


mirrorball

by gay_english_nerd



Series: fractured folklore- Miraculous Spin The Record Challenge [6]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Character Study, Folklore, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29064852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_english_nerd/pseuds/gay_english_nerd
Summary: Lila has some startling realizations as her life crumbles apart.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Lila Rossi
Series: fractured folklore- Miraculous Spin The Record Challenge [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129127
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: Miraculous: Spin The Record Challenge





	mirrorball

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I don't have much to say here. This may be one of my favorite pieces from the series, though- I like the character study of Lila, that's all.

_I want you to know I'm a mirrorball…_

Lila was crumbling. It was an odd feeling, and an odd time to notice the feeling, as she swung her legs out of some stranger’s now empty bed. 

But she could feel it. She was crumbling. 

The person she had spent the night with(now that she thought about it- she didn’t remember much from last night. Girl? Boy? Someone else? It was a mystery) had left, it seemed. The sheets were disheveled and her head pounded, but this wasn’t new- in fact, none of this experience was foreign to Lila. She couldn’t pin down what exactly felt so wrong about her now. 

_I'll show you every version of yourself tonight..._

World spinning, Lila cautiously stood. She was hungover, but there was an easy fix for that- she spied a half-drunk bottle of vodka resting on the bedside table. She probably shouldn't do this, but it felt like a special occasion- she was crumbling, after all.

Grasping the neck of the bottle, she took a hearty swig, wincing at the sting before relaxing to the warmth in her belly. Glancing around, she took a better inventory of her surroundings- it looks like she’d found her way into a hotel room the night before. She gave a wry grin. Her partner- whoever it was- had been smart to not take her back to their place. She was known for snatching a few trinkets on her way out. 

She took another swig from the bottle. 

_I'll get you out on the floor, shimmering beautiful…_

Standing again, she stumbled over to the vanity, placing the bottle haphazardly near the edge. She couldn’t deny that the mirror painted an ugly picture- her three ponytails were tangled and matted, and her makeup was smeared from sleeping in it. Her lips, underneath the heavy layer of lipstick, were chapped, and her skin had an odd pallor to it. 

No, she did not look beautiful right now. But last night…

She closed her eyes, struggling to remember the events preceding her arrival in the hotel room. 

Last night, she was sure she was beautiful. 

_And when I break, it's in a million pieces._

And yet, she was crumbling. 

She wasn’t entirely sure the cause- everything had been the same last night as it had been all the nights before. She’d gotten dolled up, headed out to a bar or a club, gotten wasted, and then found a suitable person to spin a tale for so they’d take her home. None of that was perplexing to her. 

No, she was more curious about _who_ she was last night. 

She took on a new identity each evening, becoming a princess or a diplomat or an animal rights activist, whatever she thought her partner wanted the most. She took over the club floor with her stories(because that’s all they were), and she went home with whoever she wanted. 

Stories. Not lies, or mistruths, or anything other than that- they were just stories. She was just telling people what they wanted to hear. 

_Hush, when no one is around, my dear, you'll find me on my tallest tiptoes...shining just for you._

She took another hearty swig of vodka as a voice rang in her head. It was angry- a child in her head screaming for her attention, begging her to turn her life around, or something.

And it sounded terrifyingly like Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

As the name rang in her head, she took another sip of the vile drink, relishing how the burn in her throat distracted her from her mental Marinette’s disapproval. She didn’t understand why she cared so much- why Marinette’s voice still rang in her ears, despite not having seen her since lycee. The fact that Marinette was still able to get under her skin, years later, irked her. 

She _wasn’t_ a liar. 

She tried to take another gulp of the vodka, only to find she had finished the bottle. No matter. Tossing the bottle aside, she stumbled to the minifridge, finding a chilled bottle of wine, likely something she picked up along the way last night. On top of the fridge, she found a tipped-over wine glass. _Perfect._

She grabbed the glass and the bottle and staggered back over to the vanity. She was met with a new problem, though- the bottle was corked. She tugged at the cork, growing increasingly frustrated. She wanted her wine _now_ , and the damn cork-! With a shriek of irritation, she smashed the neck of the bottle on the vanity. The edge of the bottle was now jagged, but Lila didn’t notice- with a sigh of relief, she poured herself a glass and took a swallow. 

_Hush, I know they said the end is near, but I'm still on my tallest tiptoes… Shining just for you._

To avoid the pressing topic of the little Marinette screaming in her ear, she turned her attention to her first realization of the morning(afternoon? She didn’t know, nor care). 

Why was she crumbling?

Maybe it had something to do with Hawkmoth’s recent capture. _Gabriel Agreste_. When she’d read about it, she’d laughed a bit- there was an irony in there that she couldn’t bring her drunk mind to decipher. 

But now Hawkmoth was gone, and Paris was safe, supposedly. Ladybug had won after all. She wasn’t really sad about it- everyone had been expecting it for some time, and she’d come to almost respect the red-clad hero. Not that she’d ever say it to her, of course. 

But something about Hawkmoth’s capture… maybe that’s what was setting her off. When she’d first come to Paris, she’d almost thought she was special- her class believed her lies, and, more importantly, she had an ally. A powerful ally. Hawkmoth gave her power that she wasn’t used to, true power, and she was drunk on it- that is, she was drunk on it for as long as he had been willing to give it. Because soon enough, he’d stopped sending her akumas, and she’d been cast aside again. 

Still, Paris had felt better to her than anywhere else. She still felt that power just past her fingertips, and she had more influence here. She had enjoyed that. 

Hawkmoth was gone now, though. Her first ally. He was the ground that her throne of lies- _stories_ \- had originally been built upon, and now, with him out of the picture, she was crumbling. 

She laughed wryly as she remembered that Adrien had refused to expose her lies because of his fear of akumas. She bet that now, no one cared enough about her to expose her. 

_I want you to know I'm a mirrorball... I can change everything about me to fit in._

She glanced back up at herself in the mirror. She was a one-night stand type of girl, she realized as a pit formed in her stomach. People who were drunk enough to believe her stories(because that’s _all_ they were) took her home, but by morning they moved on, leaving her behind. 

And it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She knew that- she’d met a few people who absolutely loved it- loved the mystery, the spontaneity, any and all of it. The problem was the fact that Lila fooled herself every night, pretending that it was real, that every person who went home with her was someone she could love and be happy with. The problem was that she tricked herself into believing they’d still be there in the morning. The problem was that she didn’t want to be a one-night stand type of girl. 

There it was again. The little voice, high pitched and sweet like Marinette’s, begging her to stop lying to herself. 

She shook her head. 

_You are not like the regulars- the masquerade revelers- drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten…_

The voice remained, though, as she stained her lips with blood-red wine, telling her truths she didn’t want to acknowledge. _You’re a liar, Lila. You’re lying to them, to the world, and to yourself._

When Lila had first met Marinette, she was relishing in the newfound control she had. The school bought into her stories surprisingly easily, and she hadn’t met any resistance when she molded them like putty- until Marinette. Marinette called her out. Marinette fought, straining against the binds Lila had created every step of the way. 

Marinette had never fallen for her lies. Everyone else had. 

Maybe that’s why she stuck in her head. Marinette, as annoying as she had been at the time, imprinted herself on Lila. Everyone else had loved her, had danced to her tune, had sung merrily along as she fed them careful stories, but Marinette had never gazed at Lila with anything but hatred, or, worse, pity. 

_Hush, when no one is around, my dear, you'll find me on my tallest tiptoes shining just for you…_

Lila took another sip of wine. 

The voice was persistent, and extremely annoying. Just like the real Marinette Dupain-Cheng. 

Lila let out a groan of frustration, grabbing the wine glass and sinking down to the floor. So _fine_ , maybe they were lies. But just white lies- they never harmed anyone. Especially not now- not when she told her one night stand she was someone else. Her partner would believe they were taking some incredible person to bed, and Lila believed she was falling in love. 

Small, harmless white lies. 

That’s all they were. 

Lila finished off the glass of wine, leaving just the dregs staining the sides of the glass. She dragged herself up to the vanity again, gripping the broken bottle and pouring herself another hearty glass of wine. She’d need it, she thought. 

_And they called off the circus, burned the disco down...I'm still on that tightrope, I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me…_

The worst part of this whole damn thing was that Lila had never wanted it to go this far. Before Paris, she’d lied a little, sure- she’d had no problem embellishing stories, or making up a few dramatic details, but that had been all that she could get away with. In Paris, it was different- people loved her and listened to her in a way that no one had ever before. And she was high on that- even without Hawkmoth’s power, she had more influence than she’d ever had. She said a word, and the class was falling at her feet, practically. It was incredible. 

And so she lied a bit more. And more, after that- while her first day had been a test to see what she could get away with, she found she hadn’t even pushed the boundaries hard enough. It was a haze of lies that she couldn’t seem to find her way out of. 

And after lycee, she had wanted to stop. She didn’t _need_ to lie to find someone who would date her, or take her home for the night. But for some, indescribable reason, she did anyway. And now she couldn’t stop. 

_I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try- I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me…_

She _liked_ the attention. It wasn’t something she got naturally- she was moderately pretty most days, sure, but that wasn’t enough to get you in the spotlight. You needed talent, and all Lila had was her silver tongue. Her white lies just helped get her a little more attention, is all. 

The Marinette inside her stirred, and Lila shook her head, taking a large swallow from her wine glass. 

Maybe that’s the reason she hated Marinette so much, the reason everything she did got under Lila’s skin. Everything Lila wanted, lied about, Marinette had- good friends, connections, a good heart, talent. All of it was Marinette’s and it was just so damn unfair- Lila couldn’t see why she didn’t deserve it just as much as Marinette did. 

She was _just_ as good as Marinette was, surely. Her white lies hurt no one. 

But mini-Marinette stirred again, yelling at her from within. _They hurt everybody,_ Lila can hear her scream _, Them, me, you._

Lila put her hands over her ears. She knew it was true, but she needed to stave off that truth- after so many years of lying, she wasn’t sure if she could handle it. She finished off the wine in her glass almost desperately before pulling herself to standing, grabbing the wine bottle again.

She emptied it into her glass, but it barely even filled it a quarter of the way up- _it wasn’t enough._ She let out a cry, smashing the bottle against the mirror of the vanity, watching as it fractured, cracks webbing up the center like the lace on her favorite party dresses. 

The bottle had shattered in her hand, and she felt the blood dripping from her palm onto the dark wood of the vanity. 

She blinked. 

_Because I'm a mirrorball…_

A hundred distorted Lilas blinked back at her. A million versions of herself, all the same lying thief. 

She took a slow sip of her remaining wine, letting the blood drip down the glass as an odd feeling of deja vu overcoming her. She was crumbling, like she had been for the past week, month, year-

Oh, but she was beautiful, wasn’t she? Even the shattered mirror could show her that. Her hair was in her unique style, her makeup was immaculate, her lips were stained a beautiful red by the wine, and her cheeks were flushed. Oh, she was beautiful. 

Lila took another sip of wine. 

_I'm a mirrorball and I'll show you every version of yourself tonight…_


End file.
